art is the new religion

No way to control it, it's totally automatic

I've had this song stuck in my head for days, so the only thing to do now is pass it on to you.

I've known this song for years, but I never knew who sang it until I Googled it.  And, I'm not gonna lie:  all this time I thought the lead vocal in the verse was sung by a man!  I had no idea it was the Pointer Sisters.  I'm still wrapping my head around this as I watch the video.

"All I can manage to push from my lips
Is a stream of absurdities"

OK now I'm on to the costumes - how great are they?  The lavender pantaloons?  The iridescent fabric?  Ruffles, ruffles, ruffles!  The Pointer Sister in the hot pink on the right, her legs go on for days.  The synth sounds in this song are out of this world.  And pay attention to the dancers on the wide shots - I love the woman wearing the spandex bodysuit with a belt.  What is the belt holding up??

More fun facts:

• They really are sisters with the surname of Pointer!
• The Pointers are from Oakland, heyy.
• They were the first black female singers to perform at the Grand Ole Opry.
• Ruth Pointer was a grandmother by the time "Automatic" came out!
• They recorded the pinball number count from Sesame Street!

That is quite possibly the greatest cartoon ever made!

So that's two earworms for ya.  Which one is in your head now?

My Boys

I'm taking a break from art and music for a moment to tell you about a sitcom I really like.  It's not going to change your life or go down in history as giving you one of the best half hours you've ever spent, but it's unpredictable, fairly well-written and has some genuinely interesting characters.  The show I'm talking about is "My Boys" and Season 2 premieres Thursday night on TBS.

I first heard about the show last year when I used to watch "Sex and the City" reruns on TBS.  The network was running a ton of ads for the premiere of "My Boys", and I started to get annoyed at this new show about a tight group of friends (five males and one female who works as a sports writer) who do a lot of drinking and talking about dating.  I kept imagining a group of TV execs sitting around a table saying "let's market this as a 'Sex and the City' that men will actually watch!"

I was annoyed to the point of obsessive curiosity, so I tuned in on premiere night with the masochistic expectation of writhing and eye-rolling my way through the first episode of a series that would no doubt get canceled quickly due to being derivative and uninteresting.

Of course, I ended up really enjoying it and faithfully tuning in to every episode of the first season.

The plot centers around PJ, the cute, female, blond sports reporter with a group of five close male friends and one close female friend.  The dudes are like her brothers, especially since one of them is her brother, except for the one or two with whom she has sexual tension (of course).  They drink a lot and have a weekly poker night and talk about all their dating exploits.  What makes them interesting is that they never spend too much time fitting the stereotypes you'd expect them to, they have a genuine rapport together, and they all do a great job of portraying the humor and familiarity that's written in their scripts.  The actress who plays PJ does an especially good job of being beautiful, nice, funny and likeable.  She's a girl's girl who is also believable as 'just one of the guys'.

This series also has one of the most hilarious peripheral characters I've seen in a long time.  Johnny Galecki, perhaps best known as Darlene's boyfriend from "Roseanne", plays Trouty, a deliciously obnoxious and clueless hanger-on who lights up the small screen during each of his rare appearances.  He plays his part perfectly, keeping you wondering how they could possibly keep him around, yet being just endearing enough to charm you.  Here's a bit of Trouty in action:

Check out some other clips from the show:

go to My Boys page more TBS widgets

Tune in tomorrow night for the season premiere!

The Johnny Cash Show

Our local PBS affiliate KLRU was having a fund drive this weekend and I caught part of their broadcast of "The Johnny Cash Show" (1969) on Saturday night.  They showed performances by country legends including Tammy Wynette, Kris Kristofferson, Loretta Lynn and Merle Haggard.

I grew up knowing who "Waylon, Willie and the boys" were, thanks in part to the song "Luckenbach, Texas":

But I'd always pictured Waylon, Willie, Johnny and Merle as crusty, bearded old cowboys hewn from the rough country landscape, as iconic and weathered as the faces on Mt. Rushmore (I'm not the only person to have pictured this). 

So seeing them forty years younger, circa 1969, was a bit of a revelation.  They were actually quite dashing back in the day.  Just look at Merle with his artfully combed coif, canary yellow button-down and jaunty kerchief tied about his neck:

I was really inspired when I saw this clip of Waylon singing "Only Daddy That'll Walk The Line."  Yes, the song is cool, but there is so much amazing style in this two minute clip I can hardly stand it:

• Waylon's guitar is gorgeous
• That double-necked electric guitar - 12-strings on top - is out of control
• Who is the sassy, beautiful keyboard player in that awesome red dress?
• The hot pink and yellow set design is totally hot
• Waylon's positively suave in that suit and shiny, shiny slicked-back hair

I'm also fascinated about how loose the first performance is - the bass player keeps screwing up on his backing vocals and Waylon just has a good laugh with him about it.  They're thinking, Oh it's just the Johnny Cash show on television, not that big of a deal.  Could you imagine a band today casually laughing off a few screwups on Letterman?  No, it'd be an all-out crisis, with their record label and management team calling emergency meetings in a panic.  Everyone seems to be just having fun with their pal Johnny on this show. (How weird was that little interlude when Johnny sidled up to sing about taking Waylon's woman out when he wasn't around?)

I keep wondering what the modern-day equivalent of this show could possibly be.  Which of today's artists could land a TV show where she or he could bring friends on to play, and have any hope for it all to be culturally and musically relevant four decades later?  I'm stumped, but if you have ideas please comment. 

• Buy the two disc DVD set of The Johnny Cash Show: The Best of Johnny Cash 1969-1971 from Amazon.
  

The Gutter Twins on Letterman

My roommate Jeff Klein has been off on tour non-stop since early February, and I've only had the occasional text message or IM to remind me that he's alive and kicking.

Well, fire up your DVRs because there should be a honest-to-goodness Jeff-sighting when The Gutter Twins play Letterman on Wednesday night.  The Gutter Twins is a collaboration between The Afghan Whigs' Greg Dulli and Screaming Trees' Mark Lanegan, and is therefore spooky and sexy at the same time.

Look for Jeff tomorrow night behind the keyboards!

Update 3/20 -  Harold pointed out that the video is available now:

Listen to The Gutter Twins

See The Gutter Twins on tour

• Buy The Gutter Twins' Saturnalia from Amazon.

Spoon on SNL

The boys in Spoon were on Saturday Night Live last night!  It warms my heart, even though I didn't yet have a television here in Austin to watch it.  Thanks YouTube:

I'm still recovering from a cross-country move and have no internet in my house yet, but I'll be posting more often starting later this week.  To my SFist readers, welcome and thanks for stopping by!

Best Bday Card EVAR.

This was waiting on my front door last week when I got home from a work trip.

Best birthday card I've ever gotten.  Thanks Trotts!

Project Runway fun

If you're a Project Runway fan, you need to check out the Project Runway community on LiveJournal.

http://community.livejournal.com/projectrunway/

Among the gems I've recently discovered on this community include:

• Andrae's loopy Ebay auctions
• The contestants' MySpace and Friendster addresses (which you probably can't see because it's a friends-only post)
• Tons of links to photos from the Fashion Week show
• Drawings like the one shown here
• Links to hilarious bootleg PR merch
• A link to the rental listing for the famous Apt. 35D
• and more random and sundry Project Runway ephemera

Update:  Ben documents our foray into the Project Runway drinking game.  Please forgive him for referring to the beverages as "pomegranate cosmos" when you and I both know they're actually called posmos.

Project Runway

Allow me to direct you to Ben's latest post for some more Project Runway greatness.

GRAMMYzzzzz

I've been in a Theraflu-induced haze for the past few days and have been missing out on all sorts of fun things like seeing Will Sheff play a solo show at Cafe Du Nord and hanging out with my friends Fil and Poe who were in town with Duncan Sheik last night.  :(

In my stupor of sickness I have watched a lot of TV.  The GRAMMY Telecast was especially underwhelming this year.  How did I ever watch any awards telecast without the DVR-power of being able to fast forward through most of it?  Christina Aguilera's rendition of Donny Hathaway's "A Song For You" (OK I know Leon Russell wrote it, but I'm familiar with Donny's version) was exciting in theory, but her vocal noodling combined with the avant jazz piano noodling just ended up making my brain hurt.   Sure, they had a drummer backing them, but I couldn't find the beat for the life of me.  Oh and the all-star celebrity jams, they're just embarrassing.  Less is more, GRAMMY people.  I'd rather see Keith Urban strumming on his acoustic than half the superstar attendees jamming with the reanimated Sly Stone.

And who was that random tattooed, faux-hawked, cutoff-sleeved-white-jacket wearing yahoo that sang with Fantasia during one of the many tribute medleys?   He was so random that I don't even know how to google him.

In other TV news, the personalities on Project Runway are still captivating, but their creations are not.  Santino, what was with that jumpsuit??  Where is the talent and promise we saw in you during the first few episodes??

This genius drawing came from a commenter to Santino's Myspace profile.

Tonight I'm also missing Chad VanGaalen who's opening for Mason Jennings' sold out show at Great American.  I saw two of Chad's videos on Subterranean this weekend, and I think I might be in love with his music.  Watch the video he made for "Clinically Dead" -- he does all the animation himself.  I need to get a copy of his record Infiniheart.

And before I forget, read my review of "Danielson: A Family Movie" on SFist.

Tim Gunn drinking game

About two episodes back, my Project Runway Watching Club (Ben, Mena and I) started to realize that Tim Gunn is one of the most entertaining parts of the show. 

It probably had a lot to do with Santino's spot-on mocking of Gunn, but it also has a lot to do with Gunn's predictability.  Santino's got the voice and the phrases down, but what about when Gunn swans into the design room with his everpresent frown?  His repetition of the phrase "make it work"? (We're doing our best to adopt "make it work" into our daily lexicon.)

Someone needs to create the Tim Gunn drinking game.  Who's it going to be?  Ben?